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A few tears rolled down his cheeks, and he glanced at a reporter and said, “Sorry, man.”

With that, Lipon rubbed his eyes and disappeared through a side door in the mixed zone at the Ufa Arena to head back to the Canada dressing room.

An hour or so earlier Saturday, Lipon learned he had been suspended by the International Ice Hockey Federation for one game at the 2013 World Junior Hockey Championship.

The 19-year-old forward had put on a brave face for a group of reporters, but it was clear that the suspension for Canada’s game Sunday against the United States was a blow. His eyes watery, Lipon let some tears fall after most of the media had moved away.

Lipon, passed over two years in a row in the National Hockey League draft but a player whose desire and determination earned him a spot on Canada’s roster, couldn’t quite believe he was going to be sitting in the stands as his teammates battled the Americans.

“It’s hard because it’s one of the only chances you are going to get playing for Canada,” Lipon said. “I made it this year, so you don’t want to be sitting out.

“I’m disappointed. I have to be more disciplined. Watching it a million times, it probably would have been a roughing penalty in the CHL. Every time you go in for the hit, I guess you have to be ready to pay the price with how things are being called.”

The player Lipon hit Friday, Slovak forward Tomas Mikus, did not miss a shift and scored a goal during Lipon’s five-minute major for a check to the head. The play occurred 6 1/2 minutes into the game, so by the time Lipon returns against Russia on New Year’s Eve, he will have missed nearly two full games.

“We have been through this a couple of times now and we respect the decision of the IIHF,” Canada head coach Steve Spott said. “But in my mind, it is a two-minute minor and you move on. We understand the standard is different over here, we accept it and we have to deal with it.”

For Spott and the rest of his staff, they can’t drill enough into the heads of their players that some elements of physical play in North America won’t be tolerated by IIHF referees, no matter how inconsistent they might be. Fans have to hope the players have that realization sinks in before the medal round.

“It’s the old stove analogy where you touch it and you get burnt,” Spott said. “You have to stay away from it. We have preached it and we have spoken about it, but ultimately players have to understand that a two-minute minor back home might be a suspension over here. It is now something these players really are understanding.”

The suspension of Lipon put the Canadians in a two-player hole for the game against the Americans. Anthony Camara was assessed a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct for his hit on Slovakia’s Patrik Luza, but the IIHF deemed that no further review was required. Luza, who suffered a concussion and had to get stitches to close a facial cut, has been released from hospital.

Luza needed a stretcher to be taken off the ice. Mikus embellished the hit by Lipon, an act that no Canadian player will duplicate.

“None of us go down like that,” Lipon said. “If that’s what you need to do to get a major around here, there is something wrong with that.

“If you look at the logic, it might be the smart thing to do. But that’s not what Canadian hockey is about.”

Said Spott: “It’s funny — we have said maybe it is something we should start invoking with our players. But all the Canadian hockey players, from the time they are five or six, (are taught) you don’t lie down. You get up and drag yourselves off the ice.”

Perhaps most difficult for Lipon was that his parents, Jason and Shelley, made the trek from Regina for the tournament.

“They don’t want me sitting out,” Lipon said. “It kind of sucks because the coach comes in and says it is hard to trust (me) because I have taken two of those majors (including one in an exhibition game). I’m going to be the 13th forward and have to work way back up. It’s the situation I’m dealing with.”